Houston County baseball sweeps Northside for 13th straight year, wins fourth in a row

WARNER ROBINS — The first game against the Northside Eagles (3-7, 0-3 Region 2-5A) was a cinch for the Houston County Bears (10-3, 3-0 Region), but Game 2 of the doubleheader proved to be more of a challenge despite the final score.

HoCo won Game 1 15-0 in four innings, and Game 2 15-1.

Three observations from Friday night:

Struggling in the second game of doubleheaders

As HoCo approaches midseason, they find themselves struggling in the second game of doubleheaders.

This isn’t a new problem; They suffered from similar issues last year.

Two of their losses have come in Game 2 of doubleheaders — 3-1 against Oconee County and 7-6 against Wesleyan Christian in the PG Tournament.

The 15-1 final doesn’t paint the picture of a struggling team, but after going up 5-0 in the first inning the Bears started coasting and ended up having to go a full seven innings for the only time against the Eagles.

It’s not something coach Matt Hopkins has seemed pleased about in the dugout.

“We’re having a hard time right now with the second game of a doubleheader. Every time we’ve played a doubleheader so far we’ve beaten a team really bad Game 1,” Hopkins said. “Oconee County, we beat ‘em 9-0. Game 2 we come out and lose 3-1 because we just didn’t execute and we lost focus.”

“The same thing happened today. We had a really good Game 1, we came out, we executed, got a lot of runs, threw it well, played good defense and then Game 2 we got up five and as soon as we went up five it was like somebody put the car in neutral and we just cruised.”

Getting more comfortable at the plate

Even though Game 2 didn’t go as smoothly as Hopkins would have liked, HoCo still tallied a total of 21 hits through both games and drove in 22 runs with the wind blowing inside the park for much of the nightcap.

Ethan Buffone had six RBI in Game 2, which accounted for more than half of HoCo’s 11. His three hits were also a third of the Bears’ nine.

Isaiah Galason is coming off of a productive PG Tournament where he got 7 hits and 12 RBI.

“I think some of [the hitters] are still trying to find their place. Galason, I think he’s really locked in, he’s had some really competitive and good at-bats,” Hopkins said. “Vick Gann’s been swinging it well, he just hasn’t had a lot to show for it. He has hit atom balls as you would call it. They’re just roped right at somebody or the wind’s blowing in.”

“I like where we’re at, and I think that once we get going I think that this could be a really good offense.”

Same ol’, same ol’

Veterans won their series against Thomas County Central this week, something they haven’t done while the teams have been in the same region the last four years.

They also played Perry in a tight series the week before, and will come into Tuesday’s matchup against HoCo looking to knock off the most dominant Region 2-5A team in recent years.

Despite that, Hopkins and his Bears will prepare as they always do as to not get in their own head before an important region series.

“We just prepare like any other series. I think we learned that years ago,” Hopkins said. “When we overhyped a series or overhyped an opponent, we came in tight and didn’t play our game. I think that’s the big thing is making sure that we just play Houston County baseball.”

UP NEXT

HoCo will head down the road to Veterans on Tuesday, March 11 at 6 p.m. to start their second region series.

Northside will travel to Lee County on Tuesday, March 11 for the first part of their series against the Trojans at 5:30 p.m.